So what is my deal? Meh; I don’t know. I’ve been busy doing other things lately, and my blog has been pushed into a dusty corner. I’ve been busy with language learning, where my list of target languages has grown rather large – perhaps unbearably large. As of right now, I’m actively studying German, Russian, French, and Spanish. Oh, and I have materials on the way for Dutch, as it seems like a pretty easy target knowing English and German.

I’ve been gardening a bit (gardening, great gods), and quite enjoying it. Not only is it relaxing, the fruits of it shall be wonderful on homemade club sandwiches (we’re growing tomatoes, among other things). The one thing I’m not so fond of: the bits of dirt that I can’t get out from my hands. Scrub as I might, I can’t get it out.

I’m still chugging along with No-S and shovelglove. I had to climb back onto the No-S wagon after falling off of it during holidays, but I’m back on now and holding on for dear life. Shovelglove never fell off my radar, and I’m actually considering upgrading my sledgehammer to a slightly heavier version. While I still break a sweat, my arms are no longer burning by the time I’m done; I daresay swinging the hammer around has become routine. That’s a Good Thing (TM), but I think I need to kick it up a notch (two T.V. star phrases in one sentence, that must be worth a gold star or something).

While shovelgloving, I generally watch a bit of a Stargate SG-1 episode; sometimes only 15 minutes, but sometimes I go ahead and finish the episode when I’m done exercising. With such a steady rate, I’m now up to episode 4 of Season 6. Just over halfway to the end; when I’m done with it, I’m going to be rather sad. Shovelgloving and SG-1 are like peanut butter and jelly for me at this point…

I guess all of that was a roundabout way of saying: I have plenty to blog about, I’m just not doing it. I’ve been too busy doing the whole, um, life thing to blog about it. But I do miss doing so. I may try a post schedule, say 3 posts a week, or something like that. Cas went for a daily post, Monday through Friday, but I know I wouldn’t stick to such a thing, so I won’t even bother attempting it. Maybe I’ll even take a look at some memes; I used to do Friday’s Feast (which is either dead or just not working right now).

Quick, someone motivate me!

I dreamt this morning¹ that I was at a massive shopping area; it seemed like it was a flea market or some such, but it was in something akin to a warehouse; very tall ceilings. We were at a used book place, except rather than browsing the shelves, you stood in line, and people “took your order”, as it were. The counter was piled with books, so while waiting, I picked up a book with a blue cover, and, lo’ and behold! It was a copy of Russian without Toil, printed in the 70s. Having the German version of the book, I obviously wanted (but didn’t need) the corresponding English version. They also only wanted $1.16 for it. No, I don’t know why it was a dollar and sixteen cents in my dream.

I’m not sure why we were at a flea market-ish place without any cash, but we were. I asked them if they took debit or credit, and the lady said yes. So, I reached to my back pocket, only to discover that I didn’t have a back pocket for my wallet, as I was wearing my boxers. Okay, then! I’m not sure what exactly happened, but in the next part of my dream, I found myself at home with the book.

By the time I got home, however, the title had changed – literally. When I looked at the cover of the book, it was for a completely different language. In my dream, it was something like “Yeradov ohne Mühe”; I remember not knowing what language that was, so I googled it, and discovered on Wikipedia that it was the Russian word for Hungarian.² And yes, the base language of the book had morphed as well – from English to German. Fiddlesticks, the base being English was why I wanted it to begin with! I recall being a bit bummed that it had changed to Hungarian, but decided that I’d probably want to have a go at it later, so it joined all of my other books on the shelf.

I think such a dream is worth at least 50 Geekery points. Maybe 75.

1. I tend to only remember dreams that I have after I’ve woken up in the morning, and then fallen back to sleep. I’ve no idea why. Does anyone else have this?
2. Not really, of course – that would be Венгерский язык.

I’m quite ecstatic about the book, as well as the quick delivery. While I touted the wonders of the internet (which I still hold to be true, mind you), I was secretly concerned about something more “worldly”: international shipping hell. I’ve heard my fair share of horror stories about packages that were supposed to hop the pond, and I was really hoping that my book’s voyage didn’t become one of those stories. Obviously, it didn’t.

Lastly, my family thinks I’m a total geek (which I agree with), and perhaps mildly insane (which I can’t totally argue with, at least not all of the time). There’s something über-geeky about excitedly saying, “Excellent! My German-based Russian text has arrived!” Oh well.

Let’s make a comparison between religions and say, language. Let’s start that comparison out with a quote from Goethe:

“Wer keine fremde Sprache spricht, kennt seine Muttersprache nicht.”

My approximate translation of this would be: “He who does not speak a foreign language, does not know his native language.” I think the same could be said of religion. If you’re not familiar with other belief systems, are you sure you really understand yours?

As a further example, I suppose one could compare religions (crudely, I know) with that favorite standby of many: food. Suppose you get someone who has never had steak, spaghetti and meatballs, or pizza. You set a plate down in front of him with a steak; he eats it, and proclaims that it’s the right food for him, his favorite out of the three. But obviously, that can’t be right. How can he possibly say that if he hasn’t even tried the other two foods?

Certainly, I’m not saying that everyone who is religious to any degree should be a scholar on all religions (or even one). But I do think that to really understand one’s own path, one needs to at least have a vague idea about the road map that others are using. It’s hard to say that you’re sure your map has the right directions if you’ve never looked at any others.

Perhaps I’m being naive, though. The real truth as to why people don’t investigate other religions, unless they’re experiencing doubt about their current one, is probably that they think that all other religions are wrong. Their religion is the One True Religion, the only one that holds the (right) answers to all of the mysteries of the world. As Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out:

“If there were a verb meaning ‘to believe falsely,’ it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.”

Perhaps the most prominent religious component is the series’ overarching theme: the human survivors’ search for Earth. That search is motivated by ancient religious texts’ references to a 13th tribe of humans that established a civilization on a distant planet called Earth. Various religious relics and ruins, both on the 12 colonies and elsewhere in the galaxy, provide clues to Earth’s location.

This is what I’m getting at: I assume that, at some point or another in the series, the Colonial Fleet will reach Earth. If the 13th Tribe made it to Earth and then proceeded to live their lives for a few thousand years, the language they used would have developed, changed, evolved. Even if the 13 Tribes had all originally spoken the exact same language, by the time the Colonial Fleet arrives at Earth, the language should have diverged, following different developmental paths. Take the Scandinavian countries, for example. Norway, Denmark and Sweden are practically on top of each other, and look how Old Norse developed into the similar but different languages of Norwegian, Danish and Swedish¹ However, it’s not even made clear as to whether or not the 13th Tribe was ever with the other 12 Tribes, so we don’t even know if they spoke the same language.

When the Colonial Fleet reaches Earth, if the 13th Tribe is still there, living out their lives, how will the communication between them be portrayed? Will the 13th Tribe speak the same language as the Colonial Fleet, just with different idioms and perhaps a slightly different vocabulary? Will they speak exactly the same way as the members of the Fleet speak? Will they speak some foreign language, which must be translated before the Fleet members can understand?

I suppose I could be considered a nitpicker, but this really does bug me. Obviously, since the show was made by English speakers with an English-speaking cast, the language that the people of the fleet speak is English. But are we to assume that it’s really “English”, or a different language altogether? Considering England is on the planet Earth, which is what the fleet is trying to find, how could the language the fleet speaks be called English? You have to have an England before you have an English language. So, let’s assume that really, the fleet isn’t speaking English. They’re speaking, let’s say, Caprican. It wouldn’t make any sense for the fleet to arrive at Earth, only to find that the inhabitants speak Caprican instead of English (or French, or German, or… you get the idea).

There’s one last facet of this that I see. One could argue that all 13 Tribes spoke the same language originally, and that the language – whatever it may be – hasn’t changed at all. That argument, however, kind of slaps one of the major themes of the show right in the face: evolution, namely, the evolution of the Cylons. If the show is based on robots evolving to look and behave exactly like humans, how could the makers of the show even entertain the idea of saying that the original language of the Tribes hasn’t evolved at all?

Any ideas on this? How could the makers explain this in a respectable way? And by “respectable way”, I don’t mean by essentially ignoring the issue, like they did in Stargate SG-1.

1. Actually, Danish and Swedish come from the East Nordic language group, whereas Norwegian comes from the West Nordic group. [More here.] That being said, I still think they’re a good example of how language changes over time.

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Heh.

Since you study Russian, I was wondering what actually attracts you to it and to the people and the country. I can imagine someone studying a language on a purely theoretical basis, but it makes more sense if you actually admire or like the culture behind the language. Just thought of this while watching the news actually: Putin, Yeltsin, the protests, the riots in Estonia… It’s all very fascinating.

He also mentioned that the answer to that could prove to be an interesting blog post, and I agree, so here we are.

While I’d love to say that I have a solid reason for wanting to learn Russian – admiration of their culture, preference towards a communist state, plans of visiting Russia in the future – I’d be lying if I said I had such a reason. I began studying Russian right around the beginning of 2007, when I received a copy of The New Penguin Russian Course as an early Christmas gift. That doesn’t really help much in regards to why I started studying the language, though, because I specifically asked for that book as a gift. Now that I try to think back and remember of any particular thing that said “learn Russian!” to me, I’m coming with a bank.

I suppose it’s just a variety of things that led to my studying it. For one, I’m just a language geek in general, and enjoy learning languages. I’ve been studying German for about 4 years now, and felt that it was time that I try to add a second foreign language into the mix. I know one influencing factor was my interest in World War 2. Due to the Russians playing such a large role in the war, I was interested in learning more about them in general (because I knew next to nothing about them). I guess this desire to learn more about Russia and its peoples simply bled off into the language department. When I decided to learn Russian, it wasn’t a thought out, planned course of action, but more of a “hey, what the hell, why not?” thing.

While I hadn’t thought of this reason specifically, I’m glad I selected Russian. As I progress in my study of it, I’m finding that I enjoy the language, particularly how it sounds. I’m also glad that it’s a Slavic language, because by learning it, I’ll have given myself a good base to learn other Slavic languages, if I were so inclined. I don’t know how knowing it will help me professionally, or if it will at all, but I can’t help but think that knowing even the basics of a fairly difficult language will help me at some point, somehow.

When I get a decent base down for my Russian, I’ll probably start working on Spanish. For that language, I do have a reason: it’s practical for where I live. Spanish is the most often spoken foreign language in the U.S., and I’d say knowing some of it would help me career wise. If nothing else, it would let me communicate with all of the Mexicans who have appeared in my town during the past 5 years or so.

So, to give a short answer to my friend’s question: no particular reason. I just kind of decided to learn Russian. (Regarding politics though, communism doesn’t look too bad, on paper, anyway. It’s never actually worked like the theory prescribes, though, so we have no historical example to judge.)

I’ve not really gotten into any grammar, or even real Russian texts as of yet: I’ve been learning the Cyrillic alphabet, along with the pronunciation. As of yesterday, I’ve covered all 33 letters, which were broken down into 4 groups. With a little reviewing of the last group, which consists of letters totally unknown in English (coupled with quite a few sounds that are generally not used in English), I’ll be able to move on to lesson 2. When I first started working on the Cyrillic alphabet, I thought the biggest hurdle would be remembering all of these oddly formed letters. Now that I’m mostly through with the first lesson, I know otherwise. It’s not overly difficult at all to remember the letters; it is, however, difficult for my American tongue to produce some of the sounds that are called for. For example, in Russian, there is a letter that is called a soft sign. What it does is combines with the previous consonant, and blends a y sound into it. Now think about trying to say a rolled r at the end of the word, with y blended into it. The author stresses that you should try to not separate the sounds. They should be together. It’s doable – I’ve achieved it a few times – but it’s not easy. Luckily I don’t feel too bad about it, because in the book, the author notes that the r sound with y blended into it is one of the most difficult Russian sounds to make. I can see how he could come to that conclusion!

Having never studied Russian before, having only heard bits and pieces of it occasionally, and having always looked at the Cyrillic writing in awe (and with more than a bit of trepidation), I was surprised to find that there are some words that are cognates in English. At this point I have no idea how to produce Cyrillic on my computer, so here are some of the pronciations provided by the book:

• mye-tró – metro, underground
• tra-llyéy-boos – trolleybus
• kó-fye – coffee
• rye-sta-rá-ni – restaurant

While not specifically about the Russian language, I think it’s fitting to mention this here. I’ve always had trouble gauging my progress in German, particularly once I got past the beginning stages. Sometimes I’d think, all of this work and so little to show for it! I often felt like I was making no progress at all. After dipping into Russian I feel completely different. Starting a new foreign language has brought to my attention just how much German I do know. In my Russian book, I’m seeing basic words that I have no idea how to say – words which I’ve known how to say in German for a long time. It’s serving as an excellent reminder that, yes, at one point, I knew absolutely no German, so I should be happy with my progress.

* The person I was buying for was my older nephew. I had no idea what he’d want and he had no idea what I’d want, so we agreed to just tell each other what we’d like. Hence, there wasn’t much point in waiting a couple more weeks to swap gifts, because the mystery aspect was gone. If you’re curious, he wanted the Dungeon Guide to World of Warcraft.

I personally find language learning exceptionally enjoyable and dreadfully frustrating at the same time. Anyone who has studied a language seriously probably knows what I mean. When you’re making progress, it’s a great feeling. It’s like finding a door into another universe and successfully picking the lock, because learning a foreign language lets you see the world through different lenses. Once you’re advanced enough, you actually have to begin thinking in the foreign language, because languages are never word-to-word translations. Experiencing the switch from thinking in one language to another is a bit of a rush, I think.

The other side of the coin is, of course, when you feel like you aren’t making any progress, or god forbid, you’re going backwards. It’s when you’ve read the chapter on the past tense subjunctive four times and you’re still not getting it. It’s when you’re consistently getting the words for embassy, businesses, and pinecones mixed up. “Ah, hello, have you been to the new pinecones downtown? They’re quite marvelous!” It is, basically, when the language you’re trying to learn says to you, “You, good sir (or madam), are far too dumb to learn me! Move on! Take up checkers, or perhaps counting pennies!” Every language learner experiences this, I think – many times. At least for me, my language learning experiences have always been a case of two steps forward, 1 step back.

Having said that, while language learning often drives me crazy, I keep going back to it. And, ultimately, it has to be because I find it enjoyable, because I have no real presure on me to learn them. I live in a small city in southern Ohio; do you know how many German speakers there are here? I haven’t ran into anyone yet. And Russian? I know of one person, and that person is the wife of one of my family members. (Which, come to think of it, will come in quite handy if I decide to stick with Russian…) Essentially, they serve no purpose other than letting me communicate in the language when I meet someone who uses it (or actively seek them out through a service like eTandem). And, after all, generally Germans know some English and will want to use it if you go to Germany. And Russians? I’ve read that generally they learn English extremely well. So, I can’t use the “I want to communicate with Germans and Russians” card, because I can already do that with English.

There is one other point to it, which I touched on a moment ago: they let you get a taste of the culture of a people unaltered by translation. Maybe that is the primary reason I keep going back to languages. Being a history geek, and, attached to that, a lover of foreign culture, languages are the key to the door. You can learn about a culture via your native tongue of course – you don’t have to learn ancient Greek to learn about ancient Greece, obviously – but you’d be amazed at how much you do learn about a culture by learning its native tongue.

So, what’s your take? Do you enjoy learning foreign languages? Do you hate it? Have you even tried it since you dropped out of that terrible French class in highschool?

Something made me smile a few days ago. I mentioned to my mom that I’m interested in perhaps learning some Russian. She responded, “But you haven’t finished with German yet!”

No, I’m not, nor will I ever be!

I think a lot of people who have never really studied a foreign language in earnest have this misconception that you study the language for a certain amount of time, and then you’re “done”. You’ve learned the language, you know all of the words, and it’s time to move on. Nicely done, here’s your certificate that says you “know” such and such language. Unfortunately, this is far, far from the truth. Learning a foreign language is a lifelong process. There will always be new words you don’t know, new idioms that come up in the language – in other words, there will always be more to learn. Even if you decide to stop actively learning the language – stop studying new grammar points, stop learning new words – you have to use the language to maintain what you have learned. Learning a foreign language consists of both learning new material, and keeping up on what you’ve already learned. I know from experience that taking a break, even a short one, can be extremely detrimental to your language proficiency. Longer breaks can often throw you back to the very beginning. You’ll relearn the material faster than you learned it the first time, but often, you will have to relearn it. You have to keep using a foreign language for you brain to keep hold of it. It’s like a muscle that isn’t used: eventually it weakens, and then atrophies.

I’ve often had people make remarks about being “done” with a foreign language. I quite often lug a German dictionary around with me, or perhaps some flashcards. People who know about me learning German, but haven’t seen me in a while, will often say something like, “Oh, I figured you’d be done learning German by now! How much longer do you think it will take?” Hah – a long time. A very, very long time!

Image under CC by DanielJames.